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Do We Need Electric Tanks? The Pentagon Seems to Think So
The Abrams is Still the Best Tank in the World, so Why Build a Plug-In?
The Abrams tank is still the best tank in the world, so why replace it? Because some hip politicians in the Pentagon want to, that’s why. And industry is happy to oblige —you know, the next great thing.
There are two kinds of electric battle tanks competing to replace the venerable M1Ai Abrams. One of them is a pure battery powered affair, the other a hybrid. These are not the only mobile platforms the Pentagon wants to electrify.
There also is an all electric unmanned autonomous tank lurking in the competition. Exactly why you would need an armored unmanned vehicle raises questions outside of the scope of this review.
(Below a prototype autonomous all electric tank)
It must be remembered that today's Pentagon, run by Obama-Biden retreads, are environmentalists first and foremost. They want to save the ozone layer while they blow up the world, or something like that.
None of this says that electrified combat vehicles, including tanks, do not have some virtues. The problem is they also have potentially deal-breaking drawbacks.
"Going electric" is not a new idea. In May, 1941 the German army, then fully under Nazi control, and in the middle of a war, carried out a competition for the Wehrmacht's new medium tank which was to be equipped with a powerful 88mm gun. There were two competitors, one of them Porsche.
(Above the Porsche hybrid electric tank prototype sporting an 88mm main gun)
Porsches are what the WOKE-set like to drive around in. They conveniently forget that Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, during World War II the president of Volkswagen and a member of the Nazi Party and the SS, allegedly used slave labor, mainly Jews in his factories.
Porsche joined the tank competition in May, 1941 with a hybrid electric tank. That tank used two 10 cylinder Type 101 diesel gasoline engines and an electric drive to power the tank. It was known as the VK 30.01 (P), the (P) was for Porsche. That tank is now forgotten as the Porsche entry was rejected when it ran into drive-train and other problems. “Lucky” for the Nazis, one supposes, as the Nazi Tiger tank that emerged (Panzer V1, Tiger 1), powered by a conventional gasoline engine, was a formidable battlefield competitor.
The push for electric and hybrid tanks is intended to solve two problems: range and endurance on the one hand, and infrared signature on the other.
In regard to the first, the current generation Abrams tank is a fuel hog, largely thanks to its thirsty turbine engine. It uses 1.67 gallons of fuel per mile, meaning that it needs to be refueled often to stay operational. The Army has been thinking of trying to improve performance a bit by adding a less fuel hungry auxiliary engine to power the tank's electronics and firing mechanisms. But that will only change fuel consumption a little.
The Abrams is a heavy tank --it weighs in at 66.8 tons in the SEP v3 version (or 73.6 short tons), far heavier than the T-72 B3 tank, seen in Ukraine, that weighs 45 tons, or the still experimental Russian T-14 Armata at 55 tons.
During World War II tanks evolved from using gasoline engines to diesel. Gasoline engines were cheaper to manufacture than diesels, but a tank loaded with gasoline could easily explode if hit. The British and the Russians were the first to change to diesel; the US was late in getting there and first sent diesel tanks to the Pacific. The Germans never made the move and stuck with gasoline, even though Adolph Hitler wanted the Wehrmacht to use diesel.
The US, with the Abrams, controversially moved from diesel to a Chrysler-designed turbine engine (now made by Honeywell Aerospace), mostly because it was more powerful than comparable diesels. At the time using a turbine was very controversial, and still is.
Modern armies, today, have an infrastructure to deliver fuel to tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and to trucks and specialized vehicles. They do not have an infrastructure to support all electric vehicles, which represents a major problem if the Pentagon were to decide to go all electric.
(I have conveniently ignored the formidable problem of charging all electric vehicles on or near the battlefield. While hybrids can generate electricity using fossil fuels, all electrics generate electricity from external chargers that use fossil fuels or other kinds of power packs, such as hydrogen or nuclear. No matter what is used to charge the batteries, charging takes a lot of time.)
Hybrids avoid the problem of infrastructure since they can still live with the fuel delivery system that exists today.
But a hybrid won't completely reduce the thermal signature of US tanks, the second advantage of an all electric platform.
But there are at least three problems with both electrics and hybrids that are ignored.
The first is that hybrids and all electrics will have to haul around heavy battery packs, adding additional weight to an already heavy tank.
The second is hybrids and electrics will use current battery technology, meaning lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are hazardous and can explode. If they are hit by shrapnel it is very likely they will catch fire and the tank will be without a power or worse. Whether future battery technology will eliminate the hazard is not clear. In any case, one implication is that the location of the batteries will be all important. In commercial vehicles batteries are generally along the bottom of the vehicle in a flat-pack. That is a major vulnerability for a tank since any sort of land mine, even a small one, can take the tank out of action and probably set it on fire.
The third problem is repairability. Electric and hybrid tanks use a drive system featuring electric motors near the drive wheels. These are unlikely to be field replaceable because of their location on the chassis of the tank. That compares, unfavorably it would seem, to a conventional tank where the engine and transmission can be lifted out and exchanged fairly easily, taking at most a few hours and in well-trained crews with the right equipment, in less than an hour.
More importantly, electric and hybrid tanks simply don't address the real needs in future tank design. Today's tanks are vulnerable to light antitank weapons that continue to evolve in range and lethality. The success of the US Javelin in Ukraine is a great example of how an effective anti-tank weapon with some "smarts" can knock out an enemy tank easily. Javelin, like its Russian equivalent, uses a tandem-charge warhead to get around reactive armor and it can be used to aim at the tank's turret which is often regarded as vulnerable to anti-tank weapons. The rise of such weapons plus drones equipped with armor piercing rockets or shells, or kamikaze drones, are the modern threats to tank survivability.
Next generation tanks need to focus on defeating increasingly capable and smart weapons that can threaten a tank from any angle, including overhead. The US Army, instead of spending money on hybrids or electrics, would be far better off focusing on the tank’s self-defense capabilities.
To get better range, dump the turbine engine and put in a high performance diesel.
Of course that won't satisfy the climate compelled folks in the Pentagon who will keep pushing electric and hybrid for future combat use.